Interestingly enough, Maya has slowly become my favorite character. Yet, I am still very confused as to what the motives, or lack there of, truly are for her character. One moment I was comparing her to a “love-struck,” trivial, hopeless romantic without any true scope of the gravity of their new habitation on mars, yet part 6 changed my mind completely. In this section, I saw her as strong, manipulative, may I even dare say POWERFUL without even lifting a finger. So the question I would like to solve is whether Maya is wearing a mask of power or if she has inadvertently taken on a role that her true innocent persona could not even fathom.

The powerful Maya is truly who I am rooting for in part 6. “But Maya, now–Maya was pleased with him. He could feel her gaze on him when he talked in the public meetings. Millions of people watching, and he felt only that gaze” (p.396). Maya uses her strong, emotional pull on Frank to “seemingly” get what she wants. The books describes her as casting a spell onto Frank which then leads to him telling her exactly what she wants to hear. “As he would tell her, sometimes, late in the evenings when he had fallen a bit under her spell. Been calmed by her. ‘Between us we’ll get it done,’ he would say as he looked up at the vivd stars in the sky unable to meet her penetrating gaze” (p.397). After reading this portion of the novel, I would have thought that Maya was simply a manipulative, man-eater with an agenda, but is she?

My confusion comes into play when I look back at the “old” maya, the Maya I judged as being unfocused and love-struck. In a passage on p.209, a full page is dedicated to Maya talking about what she loves about John versus Frank, yet ironically also speaks of how intimate and “naked” with her emotions she could be with Michael. At this point in the reading, I took this as Maya being too unfocused on things that didn’t matter:  Mars hookups. Instead of focusing on her leader duties such as helping to set up the settlement on Mars or working to instill it she is busy gossiping about her love life. On p.125, Maya also seems to be unfocused and simply in love when she asks Nadia to speak with John for her. “‘(Nadia) I can’t have John seeing us talk! I have to get a message to him, and please, Nadezhda Francine, you’re my only way.’” This is what I would have considered to be elementary games. Almost like in grade school when girls would tell a friend to tell  another friend to tell a boy she likes him. Maya did not seem to be a strong, powerful woman with an agenda.

After weighing the information, I think I have solved my question. I think that Maya is a headstrong woman who uses men to get what she wants. Until reading section sixth, I had blown her character off as the hopeless romantic, but now I see the little hints that tell of her true character. Her quick movement to the man most in power, which is now Frank considering the death of John; her ability catch men in her emotional traps, and her disappearance as soon as Frank questioned that she may not actually love him but his power. These variables all show that she is most likely working with a hidden agenda. It seems that she leeches onto men in powerful positions (John, Frank, and possibly Michael) to get what she wants out of a situation. I may be wrong, but I am excited to see if this is the true character of Maya or if she has led me astray with her ever-changing “masks” or personalities.